Even now, a number of years after its release, the Strymon BigSky is – for our money – still one of the best reverb pedals on the market today. Now, in a major move, Strymon has brought the popular and influential pedal into the world of plugins.
Strymon's first ever foray into the plugin world, the BigSky plugin is aimed squarely at guitarists looking to incorporate the original pedal's famously high-quality reverb effects into their DAWs, at a significantly lower price point.
Strymon says that the BigSky plugin is a "direct port" of its hardware counterpart, and indeed the same dozen reverb effects – Bloom, Swell, Magneto, Plate, Hall, Room, Reflections, Nonlinear, Spring, Shimmer, Chorale and Cloud – that populate the original pedal are present in the plugin.
Each of those 12 reverbs features a basic set of control knobs – in most cases Mix, Decay, Pre-Delay, Tone, Low End (a new addition for the plugin) and Mod – up top, plus its own set of more effect-specific controls below the basic knobs.
Also available with all 12 reverbs is the BigSky pedal's Infinite Sustain/Freeze function, either of which can be selected and then activated by pressing a Hold switch. The former lets users' reverbs sustain indefinitely, while letting them add to the reverb signal with their playing, while the latter delivers the same infinite sustain, while letting users play clean atop the sustained signal.
A circular knob on the left side of the plugin, meanwhile, is responsible for selecting the desired reverb effect. Crucially, while you move from effect to effect, the plugin will hold your settings where you left them.
The Strymon BigSky plugin is available now for $199, well under half the retail price of a new BigSky pedal. It's also available for free for a seven-day trial, and in AU, AAX, and VST3 formats, and runs on macOS Monterey or Big Sur and Windows 10.
For more info on the plugin, visit Strymon.
